Tech in Asia Tokyo (8-9 September 2015) #tiatokyo2015

We had a lot of fun at Tech in Asia Tokyo event, the leading tech event in Asia held tri annually across three Asian countries. You will find the highlights of the events on Tech in Asia’s website — we just thought that we would share our thoughts and tips about the event here:

Tech in Asia Tokyo is a real thing: the event is flawlessly organised and stands its own to events in US or Europe. Those considering expanding startups into the Asian market, will have the chance to meet high calibre investors and partners. We were also surprised and thrilled to see many Westerners from the US and Europe attending the event. It truly felt international which is not frequent for events in Japan!

If you are an exhibitor, plan, plan, plan and make sure you are ready to pitch. Tech in Asia Tokyo offers limited time slots to pitch to selected investors, media and partners. You should check the list and times when you arrive to make your selection and send someone to queue for a ticket. Then you only have 5 min to draw interest to your startup. Even if your idea is fantastic, you need to convince others, so we advise you to rehearse beforehand.

Make sure you have a lot of business cards. Of course you should take your company’s marketing material but do not forget you are in Japan. Here people will come to you with their business card in their hands and waiting for you to give yours. Should it be a student or an investor, they will all want to exchange their business cards even if they will never contact you. You’d better make some notes on who is who, where you met and what you talked about. You never know, it could come in handy one day!

We know you are tired but you definitely should join the night crawl. And don’t forget to take your business cards! Not only will you experience a bit of Tokyo’s nightlife but you may meet someone interesting you missed at the main event. Even though the atmosphere is festive, people are still in business mode at the beginning so be prepared to talk about what you do a bit more. We were surprised to be given a business card just because we were having fun on the dance floor with strangers.

We felt pretty excited by the passion of entrepreneurs in Asia and the level of attendees at the event. Many foreign government consultants were looking for startups to take to the UK or Hong Kong. Go, go Asia!